[SOLVED]Installing Gentoo on usb - cannot mount root when bo

[pll]

Hello
um first of all I'm sorry if this is the wrong forum.
This isn't my first Gentoo install but I'm still fairly new to Gentoo.

I'm trying to install Gentoo on a usb stick.

So far I have partitioned it into two partitions, I have grub and the kernel installed ok on the first section and the root filesystem set up on the second partition.

It boots fine however THE PROBLEM > is my kernel does not seem to recognise any usb devices during boot.

After the grub screen I get a kernel panic. The gist of the error is cannot mount /dev/sdb2 because there is no device. Possible devices are /dev/sda (internal hdd) and /dev/sr0

So I made an initramfs that dropped to a shell upon boot. When I ls /dev/ I get sda but no sdb or any other usb devices. Pulling out the usb stick or inserting new ones does not effect the /dev/ entries at all.

For completeness sake I'll say I do have a Gentoo system installed on /dev/sda1, I can switchroot to it and usb devices work fine within that system, it's just the pre-switchroot part that is the problem.

Both systems use the same kernel.

Also I'm using hardened Gentoo no selinux, if that makes a difference.

I have looked around for solutions but there weren't many to try and they didn't work.
This for example didn't help
http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Initramfs#Dynamic_Devices

Anyway I thought I'd post incase anyone has come across this or knows how to fix it.
Any help would be great ^_^
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Peace, love, linux

[EatMeerkats]

You need to make sure all your USB drivers are compiled into the kernel (not as modules), and use the rootdelay kernel parameter (8 or so should be fine): http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/linux_kernel/kernel_configuration/re58.html

[pll]

Thanks for your reply. I apologise if my wording was clumsy, I have the right kernel USB options enabled since my kernel is regocnising the devices, they just weren't appearing in /dev during boot.

Anyway your suggestion of using rootdelay delay worked when going from grub without an initramfs thankyou.

As for my initramfs it seemed that proc and sys weren't being mounted properly so I added a delay in my init script by using sleep after setting up busybox but before mounting proc and sys. I don;t understand why this works but it does.

Anyway thankyou... I don't like your username. Thanks meerkats.

SOLVED
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Peace, love, linux